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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Wall Street Journal bestseller Watch your most innovative ideas take flight by overcoming the forces that resist change The Human Elementis for anyone who wants to introduce a new idea or innovation into the world. Most marketers, innovators, executives, activists, or anyone else in the business of creating change, operate on a deep assumption. It is the belief that the best (and perhaps only) way to convince people to embrace a new idea is to heighten the appeal of the idea itself. We instinctively believe that if we add enough value, people will eventually say "yes." This reflex leads us down a path of adding features and benefits to our ideas or increasing the sizzle of our messaging - all in the hope of getting others on board. We call this instinct the "Fuel-based mindset." The Fuel-based mindset explains so much of what we do, from adding countless trivial features to software, to bolting a sixth blade onto a shaving razor. By focusing on Fuel, innovators neglect the other half of the equation - the psychological Frictions that oppose change. Frictions create drag on innovation. And though they are rarely considered, overcoming these Frictions is essential for bringing new ideas into the world. The Human Element highlights the four Frictions that operate against innovation. Readers will discover: * Why their best ideas and initiatives often get rejected - despite their undeniable value * How to disarm the forces of resistance that act against change * How to transform the very Frictions that hold us back into catalysts for change Perfect for business leaders, product managers, educators, and anyone else who seeks to bring new and exciting ideas to life, The Human Element is an indispensable resource to help people overcome the powerful forces of human nature that instinctively resist change.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Table of Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
1 The Law of Attraction
The Law of Attraction
The Mystery of the Disappearing Customer
The Four Frictions
The Anatomy of Innovation
The Intended Audience
A Note about Ethics
Note
2 Thinking in Fuel
The Car Sales Experience
The Fuel‐Based Mindset
Putting New Ideas into Motion
Progressive Fuel
Aversive Fuel
Bad Is Stronger than Good
Fuel Is Costly
Fuel Is Self‐Evident
Fuel Amplifies Friction
Why We Think in Fuel
Strangers to Ourselves
From Fuel to Friction
Notes
3 Inertia
Love at Repeated Sight
We Buy What We Know
The Pleasure Machine
How Inertia Kills Innovation
Notes
4 Overcoming Inertia
Acclimate the Idea
Strategy #1: Repetition
Strategy #2: Start Small
Strategy #3: Find a Familiar Face
Strategy #4: Make It Prototypical
Strategy #5: Use Analogies
Make It Relative
Strategy #1: Add an Extreme
Idealistic vs. Realistic
Strategy #2: Highlight Undesirable Options
The Decoy Effect
How Frogs Are Like Wine Lists
Relativity in a Nutshell
Overcoming Inertia
Acclimate the Idea Tactics
Make It Relative Tactics
Notes
5 Effort
The Law of Least Effort
Friends of Convenience
The Primacy of Effort
Changing the Effort Calculus
Effort Neglect
The Uncommon App
Notes
6 Overcoming Effort
Effort Defined
Create a Roadmap
FedEx Days
If‐Then Triggers
Streamline the Behavior
Streamlining 2.0
Overcoming Effort
Create a Roadmap
Streamline the Behavior
Note
7 Emotion
Emotional Friction
Hiring Emotion
Noah's Animal House
The Emotional Life of Procurement
Picking Second Best
The Shift to Self‐Service Fuel
Notes
8 Overcoming Emotion
Activating Latent Demand
Overcoming Our Blindness to Emotional Friction
Focus on Why
Become an Ethnographer
Pay It, Plan It
Bring the Outside In
Hiring Your Customers
Focus on Why
Become an Ethnographer
Bring the Outside In
Notes
9 Reactance
Rats, Graffiti, and the Origins of Reactance
Why Strong Evidence Is the Worst Evidence
Rethinking the Hard Sell
Notes
10 Overcoming Reactance
The Power of Self‐Persuasion
The Power of Notecards
Deep Canvassing
Ask Yes Questions
How Brainwashing Works
Total Participation
Co‐Design
Three Rules for Self‐Persuasion
Overcoming Reactance
Reactance‐Busting Tactics
Notes
11 Three Case Studies
Notes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INDEX
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
Guide
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
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“Why is it that customers looking at new products or services that would dramatically change their lives or business for the better find it so hard to embrace and adopt them? The Human Element cracks the code. It describes the four forces that act against innovation and provides entrepreneurs the insights and tools on how to overcome them. This book is essential reading for any entrepreneur or innovator looking to accelerate adoption of disruptive innovation.”
—Steve Blank, Eight‐time entrepreneur‐turned‐educator and originator of the Lean Startup movement
“Too often marketers rely on features, benefits, and promotion as the way to get customers to adopt a new product or service. But as it turns out, this is only half of the marketing formula. The Human Element makes a critical contribution to the world of marketing by identifying the four primary Frictions that inhibit consumers’ desires to adopt new offers. This book shows readers not only how to forecast these Frictions, but more importantly, how to overcome them. The Human Element is a must read for anyone attempting to launch something new.”
—Philip Kotler, “The Father of Modern Marketing,” Author of over 80 books and Professor Emeritus at the Kellogg School of Management
“An engrossing read on what it takes to open other people's minds. A leading psychologist and a crackerjack entrepreneur team up to demystify the science and practice of convincing people to let go of the status quo. If you've ever been frustrated by people rejecting an innovative idea or refusing a constructive change, this book might just be what you need.”
—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
“Adoption of your products and services is key to innovation success. Let this book be your guide.”
—Alex Osterwalder, Innovation Thought Leader, Bestselling author of Business Model Generation and originator of the Business Model Canvas
“What invisible forces slow or stall even our best innovation efforts? Schonthal and Nordgren identify four “Frictions” that get in the way, and then tell us how to overcome them. The Human Element is full of insights for designers, innovators, and executives alike.”
—Tom Kelley, Three‐time, bestselling author of the Ten Faces of Innovation, The Art of Innovation, and Creative Confidence
“Thank heavens for friction—it makes driving possible. But when traveling on the innovation superhighway, friction is stifling. In The Human Element, Nordgren and Schonthal argue that although a bigger engine can promote creativity, friction‐reduction is the secret ingredient. This beautiful, elegant book is the essential tour guide for those of us seeking to develop creative and influential ideas.”
—Eli Finkel, Bestselling author of the All or Nothing Marriage and Professor at Northwesten University
“Innovation often connotes cutting‐edge, advanced, or feature‐rich. In this book, however, Schonthal and Nordgren make the case that, after all is said and done, innovation is simply about helping people. The authors provide paradigm-shifting frameworks that will help managers and entrepreneurs improve their odds of success.”
—Efosa Ojomo, Author of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty and leader of the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation
“There's always something standing between ourselves and innovation: an overwhelming and very human resistance to change. The insights Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal surface are important reminders of the care and attention designers need to bring a new idea to life and to build our shared future.”
—Sandy Speicher, CEO of IDEO
“The Human Element pulls back the curtain on the psychological forces that stop people from embracing new ideas and adopting new products. Whether you're a creator looking to execute or an executive looking to create, this book is a timely read.”
—Daniel H. Pink, Author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human
“The ability to elegantly overcome Friction is one of the most crucial skills an innovator can possess. The problem is, most don't know how to do it! The Human Element finally reveals why we're all wired to resist new ideas, and provides intuitive tools and methods to ensure that even the most cutting‐edge innovations are enthusiastically received.”
—Bob Moesta, Author, educator, and originator of the “jobs‐to‐be‐done” approach to innovation and marketing
“Nordgren and Schonthal offer a revolutionary and profound approach to getting new ideas embraced: Don't follow the conventional path of intensifying your persuasion; instead focus on reducing the friction that fuels resistance. The ideas are eye‐opening and the writing is eye‐pleasing, elegantly combining fascinating examples with scientific insights. The writing itself personifies the very message of The Human Element: it is all fuel, no friction.”
—Adam Galinsky, Professor at Columbia Business School, co‐author of the bestselling book, Friend & Foe, and a popular TED speaker
“Friction Theory is a powerful framework for understanding user behavior. A must read for every product designer.”
—Andy MacMillan, Founder and CEO of UserTesting
“Contrary to popular belief, innovations rarely succeed because they are chalk‐full of features. This book makes a strong case for forever dispelling this view in favor of a laser‐like focus on knocking down the barriers that keep customers from beating a pathway to your door. If you want a new way of thinking about these sources of friction—and more importantly, what to do when you encounter them—you should read this book. It will give you a valuable recipe for how to design and introduce innovations that are a good bet for success in the marketplace.”
—Christine Moorman, T. Austin Finch Sr. Professor of Business Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Editor‐in‐Chief, Journal of Marketing
“The Human Element underscores the crucial role that empathy plays in innovation and change. It's not enough to talk about it, one must internalize it in order to have the impact they desire. David and Loran will show you how.”
—Maelle Gavet, Bestselling author of Trampled by Unicorns and CEO of TechStars
Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas
THE HUMAN ELEMENT
Loran Nordgren | David Schonthal
Copyright © 2022 by Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
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ISBN 9781119765042 (Hardback)
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Cover Design and Images: Kyle Fletcher
To Erin and Allison.
1The Law of Attraction: The Battle between Fuel and Friction
When a bullet is fired from a gun, it leaves the barrel moving 1,300 feet per second, breaking the sound barrier. If shot at the ideal trajectory (45 degrees), it can travel for nearly two miles. But a bullet isn't just powerful. It's equally precise. In a steady hand, a bullet will strike its target with pinpoint accuracy, time and again. What enables such a technologically simple device to achieve such extraordinary power and precision?
Most people's answer is gunpowder.
When the trigger on a gun is pulled, a firing pin strikes the bullet, causing the gunpowder inside the bullet to burn. The burning gunpowder produces gas that rapidly expands, creating enormous pressure inside the barrel of the gun. The only way for the gas to escape is to push the bullet out through the end of the barrel.
A bullet needs gunpowder to fly. But gunpowder alone doesn't enable a bullet to achieve such incredible distance, speed, and accuracy. When an object takes flight, be it a bullet, an airplane, or a pitcher's fastball, two opposing forces are at play. There are propelling forces that thrust the object forward (gunpowder, a jet engine, or a pitcher's arm). And there are constraining forces (gravity and wind resistance) that operate against forward progress.
Gunpowder isn't the wrong answer to the question, What makes a bullet fly? It's just woefully incomplete. Gunpowder explains why a bullet leaves the barrel with such tremendous force. But the reason a bullet is able to fly with pinpoint precision over a great distance is because a bullet has been optimized to reduce the principal friction operating against it – drag. Drag is the resistance an object encounters as it moves through air. To experience drag for yourself, try putting your hand out the window while driving on the highway.
Drag is the biggest obstacle to a bullet's flight. That's because the faster an object moves, the more drag it encounters. If you add more gunpowder to a bullet, it will leave the barrel with greater speed. But that increased speed also increases the drag pushing back against the bullet. That is why all bullets are rated according to their drag coefficient – the lower the drag coefficient, the better (and more expensive) the bullet.
A bullet reduces drag in two ways. First, the shape is critical. Streamlined objects with pointed ends cut through wind much better than round or blunt‐shaped objects. That is why a bullet, an airplane, and a high‐speed train all have the same tapered “nose.” A bullet also reduces drag through spiral rotation. Guns have grooves inside the barrel that causes the bullet to rotate. Just like throwing a football, the spiraling action helps the bullet cut through the air, making it less susceptible to cross‐winds that might blow it off course.
The reason a bullet flies so well is not because gunpowder gives it thrust. It's because a bullet is aerodynamic. It has been constructed to reduce the friction operating against it. A bullet, or rather people's intuition about what makes a bullet fly, is a good metaphor for the principal idea in this book. Our intuition tells us that for an idea to take flight, we need to give it thrust. And that's true. But imagine building an airplane without taking aerodynamics into account and only thinking about the power of the engines. This is precisely what we do when we launch a new idea or initiative. No wonder so few take flight.1
The Law of Attraction
How do you get people to embrace a new idea? Most marketers, innovators, executives, activists, or anyone else in the business of creating change, operate on a deep assumption. It's a view of the world so deeply ingrained in our thinking that we rarely see its influence or question its value. It is called The Law of Attraction. It is the belief that the best (and perhaps only) way to convince people to embrace a new idea is to heighten the appeal of the idea itself. We instinctively believe that if we add enough value, people will say yes. This reflex leads us down a path of adding features and benefits to the idea or increasing the sizzle of the messaging – all in the hope of propelling people to get on board. We refer to strategies designed to give an idea thrust as Fuel. Fuel is what heightens the appeal of an idea and incites our desire to change.
This book argues that people have the wrong intuitions about how to sell new ideas and create change. By focusing on Fuel to enhance attraction, innovators neglect the other half of the equation – the Friction that works against the change we seek to create. Frictions are the psychological forces that oppose change. Frictions create drag on innovation. And though they are rarely considered, overcoming these Frictions is essential for creating change.
The conventional, Fuel‐based approach to innovation is necessary. Without appeal, an idea won't survive. But Fuel alone is insufficient. To create change we must first understand the forces operating against change. While we might not see them, they are there, quietly undermining our efforts to innovate. When we attempt to overcome these forces by adding more Fuel (as our instincts instruct), we inadvertently intensify the very Friction we are trying to overcome.
The Mystery of the Disappearing Customer
One day David got a call from a company in search of help. The company (we'll call it Beach House) is a fast‐growing startup that is redefining how furniture is sold. The company has a unique value proposition. It allows customers to create one‐of‐a‐kind, fully customized furniture (primarily sofas) at a price about 75 percent cheaper than other custom‐furniture companies.
Beach House has considerable appeal to young, urban‐dwelling millennials seeking to buy their first set of “adult” furniture. A big part of the appeal is the ability to fully customize a new sofa. This goes far beyond just selecting fabrics. Every aspect of the sofa – the style, dimensions, material, even the shape of the sofa legs – is selected by the customer. Many of its customers enjoy spending hours on the site or working with a design specialist in the store to create a sofa that is perfect for them. But something mysterious happens right before would‐be customers hit the “Order” button: Nothing. They disappear before completing their purchase.
Beach House wanted to know why so many customers never purchase the furniture they spend hours creating. Logical hypotheses might include things like price, time to delivery, or a desire to shop around a bit more before committing. While these explanations are plausible, they aren't the real reason why.
It turns out, the problem had nothing to do with the company's appeal. People love Beach House's customer service, high‐quality design, and low prices – all of the motivational attributes that Fuel a new purchase. Why then did so few people click “Order”? The answer is that there was a Friction that stood in the customer's way, obstructing them from the purchase they desired to make.
For Beach House customers, what stood in the way of their purchase of a new sofa – the villain of the story – was (wait for it …) the sofa currently in their home! The Friction that blocked their progress was uncertainty about what to do with their old sofa. Will the garbage truck take it? If not, who will take it? Can they carry the sofa out of the house on their own? If not, who will help them? Customers may want a new sofa, but until they figure out what to do with their current sofa, the vast majority won't make the purchase.
In interview after interview, David heard the same story. People said things like: “My partner and I were really excited about the sofa we had designed with Beach House, but we couldn't complete the purchase until my cousin agreed to take our existing sofa.” Or “I loved the Beach House sofa I designed, but I had to wait for ‘big trash day’ in my community to complete the order. Until someone hauled away my old sofa, there was no way I could do it. I can't live with two big sofas in my small house.”
If you are Beach House, what would you do with this insight? Adding features to your sofa does not solve the problem. Nor does lowering your price. You solve this problem by removing the Friction. David's recommendation was for Beach House to proactively offer to remove customers’ existing furniture and donate it to families in need. As a result of this simple Friction‐reducing strategy, Beach House's conversion rate rose significantly.
The Four Frictions
This book explores the four Frictions that operate against innovation and change. Like drag on a bullet, the four Frictions push back against the ideas and initiatives we want to bring into the world. When a physical object is set in motion, the value or importance of the object has nothing to do with the Friction it faces. Coating a bullet in gold increases its value but doesn't reduce its drag. Unfortunately for the innovator, the same is true of new ideas. We would like to believe that a winning idea will face less resistance than an idea of lesser value. Alas, this is not so. A great idea might have greater initial thrust, but the value of an idea does nothing to abate the Frictions pushing against it. This is a big reason why so many indisputably good ideas never materialize. The four Frictions are:
Inertia.
The powerful desire to stick with what we know, despite the limitations. Inertia explains why, when attempting to change behavior, you should always give people multiple options, and why, at least when it comes to sports, Americans are socialists and Europeans are capitalists.
Effort.
The energy (real and perceived) needed to make change happen. Effort explains why Beach House customers never clicked “Order,” why shore crabs are such picky eaters, and why New Zealand is the best country to start a business.
Emotion.
The unintended negative emotions created by the very change we seek to make. Emotional Friction is the reason why cake mix took 30 years to catch on, why Tinder surpassed
Match.com
as the go‐to dating app, and why managers often strategically put their best employees in the least important roles.
Reactance.
The impulse to resist being changed. Reactance reveals why Americans waged war against seat belts in the 1980s, why strong evidence is often
worse
than no evidence at all, and why manufacturing plants find it so difficult to change practices.
Despite their power and influence, Frictions are difficult to spot and are therefore easily overlooked. The bang of gunpowder can't be ignored. But wind resistance is an invisible force. This is the tricky thing about Frictions. They exert considerable drag on our ideas, but they often go unseen.
Innovation headwinds: The four Frictions.
Consider the following thought experiment: “Imagine you run a nonprofit that gives social support to children in hospitals. Your organization encourages people to send “hero cards” – letters of support to hospitalized children. Currently, 18 percent of people who are asked to volunteer to write a hero card do so. You want to increase those numbers. How would you do it?”
When we posed this question to a group of people, two suggestions came up again and again: explain how the cards help children, and pay people for writing hero cards. So we tested these influence intuitions, along with one of our own. One group received quotes from children explaining how much the cards meant to them. Other people were paid a small amount for each card they wrote. And for a final group of people, we simply made it easier to write a hero card by giving them several templates they could use as inspiration.
The first two interventions barely moved the needle (and the psychological nudge backfired). But when we gave people templates, response rates rose by 60 percent. That is, the very thing that was most effective was the influence technique that didn't occur to anybody.
What made the template approach so effective? Does anyone not think supporting sick children is important? Of course not! They weren't resisting because they didn't think it was a worthy cause; they were reluctant to write because they didn't know what to write. They struggled with questions like: “What's appropriate? What words should I use? Should the message be happy or should it express sympathy?” That uncertainty is a Friction that defused the tactics designed to Fuel change. But giving people templates removed the Friction and behavior changed.
The Anatomy of Innovation
All new ideas have four basic elements. And each element has a corresponding Friction. The first element is the degree of change the innovation represents. Does the innovation represent a major break from the status quo or is it a slight tweak on what has been done before? This question determines the level of Inertia the innovation will produce. Radical ideas are likely to run into heavy Inertia headwinds because people inherently distrust and reject unfamiliar and untested ideas.
The second element of innovation concerns the cost of implementation. How much physical and mental exertion is required to implement the change? The answer to this question determines the level of Effort the innovation will produce. When buying a new product, what are the number of steps required to complete a purchase? Once purchased, does using the product involve learning a new routine or operating system? For organizational innovation, the implementation demands can often be considerable, as it might require restructuring roles or creating new work schedules. The greater the implementation demands, the greater the Effort.
The third element of innovation concerns the audience's reaction to the intended change. To what extent does the audience feel threatened by the proposed change? The answer determines how much Emotional Friction the innovation will produce. In the hospital card example, people feared writing the wrong message. That anxiety prevented them from doing something they intrinsically wanted to do – help children in need.
The fourth element of innovation captures how the innovator goes about creating change. Does the innovator nurture genuine interest in the idea or does the audience feel pressured to change? Pressure to change produces Reactance. When pressure is high, you should expect people to push back against change.
The Intended Audience
This book is for anyone who wants to introduce something new into the world. It can be a new product, a new service, a new strategy, a new movement, a new behavior, or even a fledgling concept that has yet to settle into its final form. Regardless of what the new thing might be, it will – without exception – require people to change in order to adopt it. In this sense, innovation and change are two sides of the same equation. One cannot be successful without the other.
Humans are creatures of habit. Although we have the capacity to change, we don't change easily. Proposing new ideas without designing their integration into the world is innovation half‐done. Books on innovation typically focus attention on the idea itself – the features and benefits of the idea that will make or break its success. This book is about the other side of innovation: The Human Element. This book explores the resistance that awaits new ideas – often from the very people we wish to help.
A Note about Ethics
Whenever you set out to change people, you have to take seriously the issue of ethics. What is the line between ethical influence and manipulation? First, we should mention that we are not ethics scholars. We do not presume to draw that line for anyone. But we would like to share the two standards we think about when we put these tools into practice. You could adopt these same standards. You could apply more rigorous standards. You could have no standards. That's up to you. These are the two standards we think about in our work.
Is the Strategy Honest or Deceptive?
We believe people should make informed choices and shouldn't be misled. Unfortunately, many of the tactics people use to get people to embrace change are fundamentally misleading. When you get a phone call from a telemarketer, have you noticed that their first name is often the same as yours? This is an increasingly common technique used by both telemarketers and scam artists. And they use it because it works. As we will see in Chapter 4, it works because of the self‐similarity principle. People instinctively like things that are similar to themselves. We are more likely to stay on the line with someone who shares our name for that reason. But it's a deceptive practice, and therefore wouldn't meet our standards.
But notice that there is nothing inherently unethical about using the self‐similarity principle to get people to embrace innovation. Imagine instead that the telemarketer does some research and discovers that both of you have an interest in common – perhaps you both share the same hobby. A telemarketer strategically bringing up a genuine connection meets our ethical standards.
What Is the Intent?
The other standard we consider is whether the intention is to help or harm. We consider innovation unethical if it's for the purpose of personal gain at the expense of others. Scam artists have nefarious intent. They seek to enrich themselves at great cost to others. The stories we cover in this book are about people who see a better way to do things and set out to bring that improvement into the world. Some of these stories are about innovators driven principally by altruism. Others are about innovators driven chiefly by profit. Both meet our ethical principles. Our red line is when others are hurt or disadvantaged in the pursuit of that profit. This is a messy and subjective standard. But we believe having an imprecise ethical guidepost is better than having none at all.
Note
1
. Crossman, Edward (1915). How rifle bullets fly.
Scientific American
113 (1): 24–29.
2Thinking in Fuel: The Reasons a Fuel‐Based Mindset Rules the World
A car salesperson is expected to sell about 10 cars a month. That's the industry average. The more ambitious aspire to break into the “20‐a‐month club.” A salesperson who sells 30 cars a month can get a job at any dealership in the country.
And then there is Ali Reda.
Ali Reda isn't just the best car salesperson in the world, he single‐handedly outsells most dealerships. In 2017, Reda broke a 44‐year‐old record by moving 1,582 cars off the lots of Les Stanford Chevrolet and Cadillac in Dearborn, Michigan (the national average is just over 1,000 per dealership) – 1,582 cars in one year. That means Ali Reda was selling an average of 132 cars a month, or 4.5 cars per day. And 2017 wasn't a fluke. Ali Reda produces numbers like this month after month, year after year.1
How is performance at this level even possible? What could make one person 12 times better than the average? When you compare the sales approach of Ali Reda to the typical car salesperson, you begin to see the difference.
The Car Sales Experience
Picture yourself standing in a shiny car showroom. You are immediately greeted with a firm handshake and a hearty smile. “What brings you in today?” the salesperson asks. You explain that your current lease is about to end, and you're thinking about changing brands. You mention some of the problems with your current car and list the features you've got in mind for the next one. The dealer nods her head furiously and vocalizes a lot of “uh huh's” as she takes in your list of requirements.
But as you observe yourself in the interaction, you start to wonder if she is really listening to you, or simply waiting for you to stop talking so she can launch into her sales pitch. The first words out of her mouth confirm your suspicions.
“You've come at just the right time! We've got some fantastic specials going on right now, and you won't believe how low our financing rates are. Why don't we hop into this one right here and take if for a test drive!” (And yes, the absence of a question mark was deliberate.)
As you get into the driver's seat of the SUV the salesperson is dying to have you drive, you begin to realize that for the next 45–60 minutes, you are not really in the driver's seat at all. You are now a passenger in an extended sales pitch designed to blow you away with all of the features and benefits this new car has to offer. The few questions you are asked seem designed to push you toward a sale. “Do you think you'll go with the optional third row of seats? What will your kids think of the bass on these speakers?”
When you finally break free of the dealership, you know you can count on a relentless chain of automated text messages and emails from the dealer asking if you are “still interested in that SUV you drove the other day” and informing you of the new promotions and offers that have miraculously become available since the last time you visited – the torturous souvenirs of a trip you never wanted to go on in the first place.
This might be a dramatized picture of the car‐buying experience. But it is true enough (and prevalent enough) that it feels very familiar. And it is this script playing out in our mind that makes us think twice before we set foot in a car dealership.
The Fuel‐Based Mindset
In most animal species, it is the female that selects the mate. Reproduction is generally a bigger investment for females than males, so they need to be selective. Females, of course, want to find the best available mate – the fittest, strongest male that will give their offspring the best chance of survival. And males go to incredible lengths to prove they are the best. They puff out their chest, display their antlers, belt‐out mating calls, and show off their plumage – all of these signals are designed to convince females that they are the best option around.
Selecting a car works in much the same way. When you decide to buy a car, you set out to find the best car for you. What one wants in a car varies from person to person, but all car buyers are in a quest to find the ideal option for them. Every aspect of the dealership experience is designed to convince you that the cars they offer are the best fit for your needs. All of the features and benefits they demonstrate during the test drive are part of the courtship ritual. They have a short amount of time to share all the golden nuggets of information that might tantalize you into choosing their car. Dealers don't know which golden nugget will tip the scale, so they are going to share the whole goldmine with you – just in case.
Although Americans love their cars, they loathe the process of buying them. That's because people fundamentally distrust car dealers. Buying a car, perhaps more than any other major purchase, pits the dealer against the buyer. The assumption buyers make when walking into a dealership is that the dealer intends to talk you into a bad deal. Imagine walking into a car dealership and telling them that you'll accept any of the upgrades, performance packages, and service options the dealer recommends. People would never do that because they are certain they would end up overpaying.
To make matters worse, the decision is shrouded in uncertainty. Dealerships have structured the process so that buying a car isn't one decision. It's a series of consequential choices. Let's start with choosing a model. The base model comes with a 2.0‐liter four‐cylinder engine with 300 horsepower. But for an additional $7,000 you can bump up to the performance model, which gets you a 2.5‐liter engine that puts out 350 horsepower. Then you need to decide on upgrades and feature options. Because you have kids, the dealer recommends you get the “driver assist” system and also recommends the “winter package,” which comes with heated seats. Once you work through all of those options, you must then decide on financing and maintenance packages. Do you want to lease or buy? The dealer recommends you sign up for the prepay service plan, because you save $200 on each scheduled checkup …
